Karnes County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Karnes County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Karnes County spend about 33 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 137 hours, about 5.7 full days, spent commuting. That is 28% less time on the road than the Texas average of 22.8 minutes each way, a difference of 6.3 minutes.

Karnes County holds about 0.0% of Texas's population and accounts for roughly 0.0% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Karnes County would save about 55 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,701 at the same national wage assumption used above.

Area	One-Way Commute	Daily Round-Trip	Yearly Time Spent	Estimated Yearly Cost	Local Road Traffic (VPD)
Karnes County	16.5 min	32.9 min	137 hrs/yr	$4,254	336
Texas	22.8 min	45.6 min	190 hrs/yr	$5,888	1,441
United States	22.4 min	44.8 min	187 hrs/yr	$5,790	1,355

The estimated yearly cost applies a single national rule of thumb (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics average hourly earnings), not a measurement of wages in this area - treat it as a rough estimate, not a paycheck figure. Local road traffic counts, vehicles per day on non-highway roads, come from proprietary Ticon and TrafficZoom data.

Commute Time Map: Texas Counties

Compare commute times among different counties

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On average, it takes 16.5 minutes to get to work in Karnes County. That's 27% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM, followed by 06:30 AM – 06:59 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by walking. About 4.6% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Karnes County

• Car: 86.9%
• Walked: 4.7% unusually high
• Worked at Home: 4.6% unusually low
• Other: 2.6%
• Bicycle: 1.1% unusually high
• Motorcycle: < 0.1%
• Public Transportation: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low

Walking is unusually common in Karnes County: 3.2 times more than the Texas average (4.7% vs 1.5%).

Public transit is essentially absent in Karnes County, versus 0.9% in Texas.

Taking a taxi is essentially absent in Karnes County, versus 0.2% in Texas.

Working from home is unusually rare in Karnes County: 3.1 times less than the Texas average (4.6% vs 14.4%).

Biking is unusually common in Karnes County: 5.3 times more than the Texas average (1.1% vs 0.2%).

Karnes County stands out for active commuting: 5.8% of workers walk or bike to work, 3.4 times the Texas average of 1.7%.

Commute Mode Trends in Karnes County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Karnes County get to work, as a share of all workers aged 16 and over, across 16 U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey (ACS) releases from 2009 to 2024. Each release is a 5-year estimate: the 2024 figures cover surveys taken from 2020 to 2024. Because neighboring releases share most of their survey years, the lines move gradually, and a sudden change such as the rise of remote work in 2020 spreads across several releases. Hover over or tap a line to highlight it, and use the legend to show or hide a mode. Driving starts hidden so the smaller modes stay readable.

• Car
• Walked
• Worked at Home
• Other
• Bicycle
• Public Transportation
• Taxi
• Motorcycle

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Walked	Worked at Home	Other	Bicycle	Public Transportation	Taxi	Motorcycle
2009	93.7%	2.1%	2.8%	1.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2010	93.8%	1.0%	4.3%	0.7%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%
2011	92.8%	1.2%	5.0%	0.9%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2012	91.8%	2.1%	4.9%	0.4%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.4%
2013	92.9%	2.0%	4.3%	0.2%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.5%
2014	92.2%	2.7%	3.5%	0.5%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%	0.7%
2015	94.1%	2.3%	2.5%	0.4%	0.4%	0.1%	0.0%	0.3%
2016	95.4%	1.3%	2.2%	0.4%	0.5%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%
2017	94.7%	0.9%	3.5%	0.7%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2018	92.3%	1.3%	5.6%	0.5%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2019	92.8%	0.7%	6.0%	0.3%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2020	93.3%	0.8%	5.5%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2021	91.8%	2.5%	5.2%	0.3%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2022	91.1%	3.5%	5.2%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2023	91.7%	2.7%	4.0%	1.0%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	86.9%	4.7%	4.6%	2.6%	1.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share peaked in 2016 at 95.4%. Overall it fell from 93.7% in 2009 to 86.9% in 2024, down 6.8 percentage points. It has fallen in the latest release.

Walking gained the most ground in Karnes County: its share of workers rose from 2.1% in 2009 to 4.7% in 2024, up 2.6 percentage points. Most of that increase, 4.0 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Biking overtook riding a motorcycle to become the 5th most common choice in the 2023 release and has stayed ahead since.

Working from home peaked at 6.0% in 2019 and has since fallen back to 4.6%.

Commute Start Times in Karnes County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Karnes County?

The bars show when commuters in Karnes County leave home for work, as a share of everyone who commutes (people who work from home are not counted), from the 2024 ACS 5-year estimates. The thin violet marks show Texas for comparison. Hover over or tap a row for the exact numbers.

12:00-4:59 AM	12:00-4:59 AM Karnes County3.9% Texas5.5%	3.9%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Karnes County11.4% Texas4.4%	11.4%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Karnes County6.0% Texas5.1%	6.0%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Karnes County6.9% Texas9.3%	6.9%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Karnes County15.2% Texas9.3%	15.2%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Karnes County15.9% Texas15.3%	15.9%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Karnes County10.6% Texas11.8%	10.6%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Karnes County10.5% Texas11.5%	10.5%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Karnes County1.3% Texas4.8%	1.3%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Karnes County3.3% Texas6.7%	3.3%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Karnes County2.9% Texas3.1%	2.9%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Karnes County0.3% Texas1.3%	0.3%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Karnes County5.1% Texas5.8%	5.1%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Karnes County6.6% Texas6.2%	6.6%

Karnes County Texas Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Karnes County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 15.9% of commuters leave home, compared with 15.3% across Texas. Early starts are more common than in Texas: 21.3% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.9% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in Texas: 52.3% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 47.9% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (18.3%) leave at 9 AM or later, which usually points to shift work, flexible hours or part-time jobs.

When people leave matters as much as how far they go. Rush-hour traffic shrinks how much ground a 20-minute trip covers, so a trade area drawn as a simple circle often takes in neighborhoods that customers or staff would never drive from and misses others that are an easy trip. A drive-time zone, also called an isochrone, outlines every place within a set number of minutes of an address, which makes it the more honest way to size a store's catchment, a hiring area or the commute from a new home.

See it for yourself on the interactive map: click any spot in Karnes County, pick a 5, 10, 15 or 30-minute drive and see the local demographics of the people who live within that exact drive time.

Is Karnes County Waking Up Earlier? Typical Departure Time, 2009-2024

Each line follows the typical (median) departure time: the moment by which half of commuters have already left home. Higher on the chart means a later start. Setting Karnes County next to Texas and the U.S. shows whether local mornings are drifting earlier or later than everyone else's. The figures span 16 ACS 5-year releases, so changes build up gradually rather than jumping from one year to the next.

• Karnes County
• Texas
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Karnes County	Texas	United States
2009	7:20 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:24 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:16 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:19 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:22 AM	7:32 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:18 AM	7:32 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:21 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:18 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:12 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:07 AM	7:30 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:10 AM	7:30 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:08 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:13 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:22 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:19 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:12 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Karnes County were on the road by 7:12 AM, 8 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:20 AM). That goes against the trend across Texas, where the typical commuter now leaves 1 minute later than in 2009. Commuters in Karnes County now leave 25 minutes earlier than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM). Since the 2019 release, which covers the years just before the pandemic, the typical start in Karnes County has moved 2 minutes later.

How does Karnes County's commute time compare?

Metric	Karnes County	Texas	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	16.5 min	22.8 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window	06:30 AM – 06:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	4.6%	14.4%	15.0%
Walked	4.7%	1.5%	2.4%
Public Transit	< 0.1%	0.9%	3.2%

The average commute time in Karnes County is 16.5 minutes, shorter than the 22.8 minutes in Texas.

0.0% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.9% in Texas. 4.7% commute by walking, higher than the 1.5% in Texas.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau